versary

Yes, it is almost my blogversary, or is it bloganniversary. Doesn't matter, but it is almost here. And so is another anniversary in my life, whoops, two special ones in fact.

But back to the reason for the blog.
Creating. Yes there has been plenty, but for the moment, none that can be shown. Yes I'm still-a-secret knitting. But a week off and plenty of knitting and sewing time has meant more time for other things as I don't have to deal with that pesky day job as well.

Biscuits have been made, shows have been caught up on. I've managed to watch series three of the Mighty Boosh. Oh Vince, how I love thee. How I love your hair, your clothing.

So off I go back to secret-knitting. But I'll leave you with a photograph of my second ever sock.

more nostagia - the nanna-list

After the wonderful time spent bending knitting needles into bangles, an activity that has been done quiet a few times in the past few days, my Zgal wants to know what else I used to do with my nanna.

It wasn't just my nanna that I did things with, there was also time spent with Grandma and other elderly women who taught me a huge range of things, from french seaming for babies clothing to how to get pastry just right to how best to peg out clothing.

It was all fun back then, but lessons were learnt so I've decided to try and work out a nanna-list of activities to do with my daughter.

I'm not going to do water colours with her and I don't have a massive art studio complete with a wheel and kiln, but I do have a french knitting 'thingo'. For years I've been looking through op shops trying to find old wooden spools with a hole in the centre big enough for french knitting. Of course I couldn't find one with a big enough hole, but then I realised that my french knitting was probably done with the left overs from the dresses she used to knit for herself and her daughters which was of course, 4ply, fingering or finer.

When the craft show swung into town and the wood turners had a bit of a show there too and I found a hand carved french knitting spool (could that be what it is called) so next on the nanna-list is to learn to french knit properly. She has already done french knitting at school over paddlepop sticks stuck to toilet rolls.

Also on the nanna-list similar to the knitting needles, is melting a record to make bowls.
I remember doing this as well with nanna who then turned them into pots for plants, cacti if I remember correctly.

So I'm going to go through my huge vinyl collection to work out what can be donated to the nanna-list. The Dead Kennedys, Kraft Work and my rare Nina and Frederick records will not be given the oven treatment, but I do have some first rate shockers (Tiffany anyone) that were bought to be spun at drunken parties.

So what did you used to do as a child with older people, what else can I include on the nanna-list.

roller derby

It seems that I have been going around and around in circles, having to put my elbows out to defend my patch, similar to roller derby, (go Jacinta) but definitely without the fun.
So things have slipped a bit, but I have managed to do a few things.
Like tax, well at least the 04-05 one, with the rest to be done on Friday, with the fella, so he will finally find out exactly how much I earn and it also means that the 04 05 return will be the last one I can just spend.
Well I used to use some of it wisely and splurge the rest, but now most will have to be spent wisely. Oh I hate this grown up thing.

But in other news, knitting is going well, almost finished a cardigan for myself although I'm no where near finishing any socks that were part of my Southern Summer of Socks mission.

The patonyle red and black socks are going along well and as I have several looong train trips ahead of me in the next week, not to mention day-long training sessions (yawn) I'm hoping to complete the pair by the end of the week.

Now I better head off and deal with the other taxes, then I have an order for some pants and I then have to start packing up the rest of the Teaspoon Awards that have to be sent out. Warning: Never give kids sticky tape. It creates a mess and much screeching when stuck in hair.

red black

Here is some red black and a touch of purple patonyle that I dyed awhile ago.
It's come out nice and dark and is knitting beautifully into Groovy Socks, that favourite pattern from Sock Pixie.
It's a simple one row lace pattern, followed by a knit row. Simple and quick to grow.
Instead of dragging the last remaining sleeve to the markets to finish off, I took the balled up patonyle and cast on. But the day was so busy I only managed two inches of sock.

The plan is to drag it around with me this week to finish off at least one sock.
Rav details of the pattern here.

noropup

Despite having a single waving lace sock and a retro rib sock both crying out for partners, I've ended up casting on what many have dubbed the noropup.

Well this time it is toe up, two on two, with one Addi lace and one Knit Picks needle and I have to say, the Knit Picks is pointier than the Addi. But never mind, the different coloured needles make it easier.

Now the thing about this Noro is that it is extremely fine, so fine in fact that when I tugged tight to avoid ladders the bastard snapped on me, leaving a tiny tail. But ha, I wasn't defeated, no Noro is going to knock me over. Instead a quick weave and decent thump down on the table as punishment and noropup started behaving again.

Other than that, not much has happened, I'm back in the office and it's a drag behaving like a grown up.

And my grandmother seems fine. Mum flew over with the news that she would need a stiff tailwind if she wanted to see her mother alive, but half way through her flight we got the call her that her heart rate was normal again (it was around 40) and she had stopped rambling and was drinking and eating properly. Seems like she had an infection that knocked her around enough to go to hospital and then made her sound like a senile old duck.

But it doesn't look like she'll be going back home, rather she will be transferred back to the local infirmary and my mum and my uncle will be looking at care options.

a three hour drive to get to a real yarn store

I finally managed to gather together most of the sock yarn purchases from the past couple of weeks.
A lot of the yarns bought were ones I've read about and seen on blogs but had never touched in person.
While some are happy to buy without touching, squishing and yes, sniffing, I'm not, particularly considering the cost of the yarn and then the postage on top.

I can't just go to a yarn store and buy sock yarn. Patonyle yes, but it's an hour round trip at least. I've had people tell me to stop being upset about Patonyle being discontinued as there are so many lovely hand dyed sock yarns available in yarn stores.
There might be where they live, but it is a three plus hour drive to get to the closest store that stocks anything coming close to a hand dyed yarn. In fact that same store would also be the closest store that is a yarn store, not a quilt, beading, fabric, clothing store, that has put up a stand of ACS in the corner.

But my lust for sock yarn and my need to try other yarns without wasting money on unfortunate purchases has been solved. A lot of this yarn (barring the Ranco and knittery) was bought via Ravelry in the trades and swaps, which means heavily discounted and decent postage costs from overseas. Yes I can have some Jitterbug socks for less than a pair of Patonyle, ditto for the KPPM, Cherry Tree Hill, Wildfoote and that's all delivered to my door I don't have a huge drive on my hands either.

So now I'll begin the process of finding out if I like these particular yarns, if they stand up to the various reviews around the place.
So in this little pile of merino goodness are two hanks of Jitterbug (bottom aqua and left side pinks and red). The KPPM is in the tuxedo colourway on the bottom left, then there is some Brown Sheep lime green, some purple variegated Knit Picks and some Skacel stretch. Hidden somewhere else is a heap of Regia and I also bought more Knittery and three Rancos in a brick red, variegated purple and solid grey. The top is already caked and ready to be cast on Cherry Tree Hill which I don't mind at all, having already scored some a few years ago.

Now if I like any of these previously exotic I won't have any qualms in handing over cash at online stores, but I have to try them first and this is an easy and cheap way to do it. So far none of the deals have gone sour, I've trusted the seller and all has been good.

And then there is the Noro sock yarn. Yes it is scratchy and feels tough and seems incredibly thin, despite this extreme closeup making the yarn look plump.


But before I start knitting there are a few other pairs that have to be finished.


In other sock news, I no longer have to the 20th to finish my grandmother's socks. Yesterday my mother had 'the call' and had to scramble to get the first available flight to Manchester. The earliest is this Monday, so I doubt I can finish anything by then and I do hope grandma manages to hang on, the mind is sharp as a tack even thou she is in her 90s, but the body is old.

a lesson

For the past few days I've been busily knitting away with what was left over from Zegal's toasty toes.
The idea was to learn toe up construction with a reverse heel, two at once on two circular needles.
And as I want to do a pair of socks for Mum to take OS to my Grandma at the end of Jan I thought that this would be the perfect pair.
While my Grandma has tiny feet length wise, I think at 91 you can safely assume a bit of old lady foot spread has occurred so a rib pattern with the DK weight on 3mm circs with a stitch count of 64 it was. I'd normally do a 48 on 3.25m for myself with a rib, but I wanted them to be soft, a little bit denser and warmer but with plenty of room for her and easy to get on.

So on I cast using the magic cast on and I was off and racing, literally, working on them once everybody else in the house had crawled off to bed.
They took absolutely no time at all to get to the heels and the heels were a breeze and it was so easy that I was able to enjoy the SBS Godzilla movie the other night and last night's Japanese cult movie. But at about 2am when the weird French movie ended I was about seven rows into the cuff with maybe five meters left!

What to do?
For starters I propped my feet up on the table this morning and took pics of the socks. Tonight Zegal and I will enjoy ripping them back and rewinding the yarn so that later on I can cast on 48 stitches and make some warm winter socks for myself.
It also means digging out some silk alpaca for Grandma and putting aside all other socks until they are done.


While the lack of yardage was a bummer, this partial pair has been a great experience. I now know that while I do prefer DPNs I could use circs if I had to for socks. Although I will be getting some Addis to have that colour difference with the Knit Picks.
While I prefer cuff down, where yardage may be an issue I can easily reverse the process which bodes well for the Jitterbug.
And knitting toe up because of a yardage issue is no guarantee of avoiding these issues.


Now for more sock news, but beautiful sock news.
In the past week I've received a few packages, no not more than usual, but the contents have been decidedly special.
Firstly was some Hercules by Jolly Jumbuck in a beautiful athabasca colourway. I tried to photograph it's deep, oil slick colours but just couldn't do it justice.

The second was a package of goodies, some of which were shown in the last post. Along with the biscuits there were rum balls (I ate them all 'cause I love me rum balls and promptly fell asleep on the lounge), and a chocolate log and a little notepad which was quickly appropriated by Zegal who declares that Spiraling is her special friend there was also some sock wool.

The sock yarn is beautiful and it looks like this.



Now to find a pattern worthy of the yarn. Any ideas?

it's beginning to look a lot like xmas

I've bought some presents, the tree is up, the tinsel and the cookie cutters are hung and a few presents for Uncle T are under the tree.
The Jar and I sat and wrapped up T's presents. That way he knows what in these presents and understands they aren't for him. In a few days, I'll start slinking more under the tree but by then I hope he truly understands they aren't for him to open whenever he feels like it.

Still going on the toasty toes, on my third attempt but seem to have it right now. Doing 48 stitches with 2.75s (3.25s and above seem to be the norm) and I'm doing a k2, p2 rib all the way down the leg and foot.

She likes them so far.

Now officially on hols, will have to go in first thing monday to clear the desk a bit and book in photos and finish off one feature, but that's only an hour or so. I must have been tired, today I ended up snoozing on the lounge for five hours after an early lunch. And last night I managed to stick a knife into the palm of my hand, right at the base of the thumb. I was juggling too many things and trying to get the lock open on the shed and the crackers fell, the (wrapped) cheese hit the deck and my attempt to stop them sliding off the plate resulted in a sharp knife getting stuck in my hand, stopping only cause it hit bone.

At least it is a clean cut, and I packed it, disinfected it and wrapped it, but it's just in that place on the right hand where the scissors rest so I can't really do any cutting out for sewing. Well I did, but it bled like the buggery, so I'll wait a few days and just machine sew what I have for now.

The cut doesn't effect the knitting.

look what i got

Today when I went to the post office I found a little box waiting for me.
And what was in the box but 5 ounces of an 8 ounce hank of toasty toes dk sport weight.
Oh it's ugly, oh sooo pink and orange and the red and purple.

It was a hard one to photograph and I really didn't capture the true colours. It's deep pink rather than a light pink and Zegal gasped when she saw it.

She wants a pair of socks from it. This is the gal who refused to wear pink and I mean REFUSED until just recently.

So I'm going to try it out.

And the first of the Teaspoon awards for the Australian Knitters' tea cosy swap were announced a moment ago.
There will be more to come.

sss

Two more pairs down in the SSS. First is the black dk weight baby alpaca and silk plain socks (plain with a 5k, 1p repeat on the leg all the way down the toe) for mum for Christmas and the second pair is the sock pixie free zig zag in Knitpicks Landscape yarn that I bought off Ravelry.

I really like the sock pixie pattern with it's two row repeat pattern. Not complicated enough that I can't watch television, read or deal with children while doing it, but not boring enough like straight stocking stitch that I end up dumping it behind the lounge and forgetting about it.

The pattern is also stretchy, but after a while the colours just came across as not me, but more mum, so this year the woman gets two pairs. There is quite a bit leftover from the KPs as I don't like overly long socks so the Jar or Zegal may get a mini pair as well.



I've already cast on for some more Jar Jar socks, 54 stitches, 2.25m with opal for a nice dense hard-to-kill sock and I have some Ranco that needs to be balled and used.

Hmmm ranco.


And as I am now officially old as my eldest boy turned 11 today, I'm going to cheer myself up with a set of Knitpicks options.

Yes, it will be my birthing day present, as in this house each time the children have a birthday, I celebrate birthing day as it was I that did the hard work, that gave them life and then coped untold pain during the whole process, not to mention what I have to do to get and remain pregnant, so I deserve a present.

big smoke

A quick trip to sydney and back for work meant a stop at Tapestry and Craft. Which of course meant falling down the stairs straight into the Ranco display.
So I ended up with a skein in the brick red colourway. It looks so much better in the flesh than it does on the screen so I'm glad I didn't order online as I would have ended up with the cherry red which just didn't move me the way the brick red colour did. I also really like the grey, but I did leave it there.
Then I stumbled up the few steps and crashed into the Rowan books and ended up having to get Rowan 40. Beautiful but I'll have to keep this one away from my mum, otherwise she'll borrow it and I'll have to fight to get it back.

The work side was good, although we kept stopping to watch skynews' live broadcasts from Canberra. When they finally got to Rudd making his cabinet announcements there were hoots all around, but not as loud or as rude as those when Costello came out to announce the Liberal leadership decision. So how many times will there be a change in the libs before the next election?

Trip home was a nightmare of sorts but still fun. The train was full when it left Central and then the slow all-stations train in front broke down and they all climbed aboard at Strathfield. There were people sitting and standing in the aisle and the stairs and I spent the trip until Fassifern squished in a corner. But the oldies who penned me in were a delightful bunch. One old dear, who had recently lost her husband after more than 50 years of marriage, was telling tales about Keating. She used to work for him in Bankstown. She was a wealth of knowledge and had some pretty broad views and told me she was delighted to meet a youngster who not only had a grasp of politics but could turn a fine heel as well. My completed landscapes sock was passed around the group who obviously knew their hand knitted socks well and knew what I was doing when turning the heel on the second sock.
One old dear asked me what I was going to do with the sock I was knitting. I turned to her deadpan and said "wear it" and that got them started about the benefits of socks and how no one knits them and how good they were and all the complaints they can cure.
That's right if I always wear hand knit socks, my golf game will improve, as will my aches and pains, not to mention my circulation. Yes despite the heat in the carriage and no space, it was an entertaining ride home.

Still no camera, but it and the fellow and Zegal should be home on Sunday. Zegal probably will want to stay there forever as there is SNOW and she has had a ball in the snow.

he's taking the camera away

That's right, the camera will be gone for more than a week, cause he thinks it's important to document his and Zegal's holiday.
Hmmp. What about my knitting I say.
Anyway, I'll be too busy really with the boys. There's a series of performances, a sleepover for a heap of 10 and 11 year olds (oh why did I say yes to this one), a trip to Sydney for award negotiations tentatively scheduled next week and so much work.

So I'll probably not get a chance to post to Southern Summer of Socks, but I'll try, although I expect all my spare time will be spent knitting the under top with that lush Rowan Cotton Glace I managed to get my hands on.

And big snaps to P' for sending so many people here. She obviously liked what she saw, maybe I should join her in the Etsy group on Ravelry too!

'Cause it's obvious that the bricks and mortar market I mentioned when talking about the fuglies (designs that I think just don't work or are plain ugly) selling first on a thread at Ravelry, was thousands of miles and several time zones away so it was nice for her to go off-site and find out I was on Etsy and then post the info for everyone to see.
Personally I try and keep the fabric away from Ravelry, there's enough to deal with over there with just the yarn, but thanks for the push!

the ceiling is falling down

The June long weekend storms just didn't flood houses, there were plenty of downed trees, flying roofs and basic mayhem.
While my brother's house and workshop went under water in a dramatic way, my parent's house had trees crash thru the second level and we had fences squashed and branches played that old fashioned game of elastics with the wires holding the antenna in place.
You could say that the branches lost and had to go to the back of the line as they crashed into the wires, causing the other wires to pull up and then go back down. Which was fine until the winds blew and the rain came down and those roofing sheets loosened in the game of elastics let rain in.
End result: Holes in really thick plaster, moulded plaster ceilings cracking and threatening to fall down and huge growing stains on my once white walls.
But finally it looks like my insurance company has come to the party.
Not only did they try and get out of paying for the new roof (which thankfully is already on) they were trying to say the ceilings and walls were already damaged, until I casually dropped into the mix the fact we had taken photos of said ceilings and walls and you can see when they were entered into the computer.
So five months down the track work will start! Soon the Zegal will have her bedroom back (the collapsing area is right over where her bed was)and I won't have to look at brown stained walls.
Next is the fence and then we change insurance companies so bloody quickly and name and shame them loudly.

But that story is just a diversion so that you don't notice the photograph of the wool above, on the bottom is J. Knits hand dyed, with looks soft and spongy and possibly pill-y while the top is some AYE AYE me hearties Yarn Pirate in the Dahlia colourway which looks like a stunning yarn, a finer version of CTH. Both were bought from ravelry so therefore don't count as buying wool.

SSOS and whose a naughty girl

Well I can't manage to keep sticking to the compacting rules. Those are the rules where you just buy the basics, basic toiletries, no new clothing, no gadgets, no dvds, no (sob) yarn.
Well I make clothing from retro, reclaimed fabrics so I've had plenty of new clothes which fit into the compacting rules.
Underwear of course is allowed, I have an unlimited source of product so I never have to buy it so I can cope with that, I also get a heap of preview movies, again no buying, but the yarn has got me.
This week some hand-dyed J. Knits sock yarn has turned up, some undyed sock wool from the UK, both of which could be loosely termed recycled so not really against the compacting bargain, but the four Knitscenes are bad, along with all my other previous book purchases.
At least I haven't bought any gadgets thou I'm so keen to buy another laptop so I don't have to fight with the fellow. The other old laptop is shite, my big lunky desktop computer is a dinosaur so I reckon a new laptop and a wireless modem so I can work out in the shed and life would be grand.
All the presents this year have been handmade and with my three kids we are definitely on the birthday party roster.
So I think I've done fairly well so far since the beginning of the year, just that ruddy yarn and knitting books have broken the compacting rules.
So I'm going to try and stick to another pact, my Southern Summer of Socks mantra is finish what you've got before you cast on for more.
I wonder how long that will take to break?

what have i done?

The oldest, Foat, does drama at the same drama company I went to as a child and will soon be performing in his first play.
Talking to the director at knitting on Monday night I mentioned that if they needed help with costumes, I could rev up the machine. She laughed and said she'd already dobbed me in to do it.
So last night I had the call. 58 pairs of calico pants and a dozen or so aprons. Fine I don't have to do them all, another mum will be doing some as well.
But the catch is the art director has yet to get the material. So by the time this happens I'll have less than a fortnight to do about 30 pants, and considering I have the same deadline for Zegal's jumper for the snow and several big craft markets to sew for I'm thinking of getting drunk!
So it's going to be a busy time ahead. I don't mind the doing the costumes, but only a fortnight to get so much done is really pushing it and I have a feeling the other mum (who has worked in the fashion industry) would probably have the same feelings as I do towards the art director. It's not as if he hasn't had a year's notice of when the play would be and the gist of the script.
And of course I signed up for Southern Summer of Socks.

sliding in some stash

I made the decision a while ago not to go buying yarn. Well not new yarn, stuff found at the opshops was fine, but no bulk purchases until I'd cleared some stash.
Well I managed to get some Knit Picks Landscapes Socks, but I could slide it into the stash without too much stress.
You see I bought it second hand in a round about way.
I did a search on Ravelry for this particular yarn and up popped a few that were for sale or trade, so trade I did.
So really it was second hand and not a bust out.

i can't help myself

Last night in my dreams people were breaking into the house and I was standing at the door trying to push it shut and the bang of the door in the dream kept waking me up. I had the dream over and over, but with slight variations, sometimes the front door, sometimes a window, but the end result was little sleep and a head that didn't make much sense this morning.
So I rang in sick. I can't work with a brain like spaghetti, but nor can I sew, so I sat on the lounge and watched Dr Phil and Oprah. This has just reinforced my conviction that I'm not missing anything when it comes to daytime television.

Anyway I ended up reaching down for the socks for Jar which are normally in a basket next to the lounge. There weren't there, they were in the car, but rather than walk out to the driveway and retrieve them I cast on with the Tofutsies instead. I'm doing the tidal wave (I'd do links to ravelry and the pattern and yarn, but as it isn't open to the public yet. . . ) pattern. I've done four pattern repeats on the leg and I'm half way down the heel and it's knitting up extremely quickly. I had cast on previously for the same pattern, but the needles fell out so I ripped back when I go my new knitpicks.
I fooled around trying to take shots and this is the best I could get to show the stitch pattern. Note the lego on the arm of the chair, I rarely spend days off doing housework, that's why I had children, they can do it.

Tidal Wave uses the old s1 k1, psso, but I've used a SSK instead and rather than a plain stocking stitch foot, I'm going to do the pattern down the top of the foot instead.
So much for finishing what I've got in progress so I can get stuck into Knitting Classics.

still s(h)ocking and the maternity mezzanine

Pink Lorna's for myself, but only one foot done so far and look at the leftover from the skein. Then there is retro rib, also one foot so far, along with a sock for Jar from that scratchy Opal. I always seem to do one foot then start a completely different pair, then back to finish off. Stops me getting bored I suppose.
Except for the kids socks, I always manage to do a pair one after the other.
I've already done one pair for the Jar from this ball, but they were 48 stitches on 2.25mm and while he can wear them comfortably now, there won't be much time left before his foot gets too big.
So this pair, on 2.25mm, is being done on 54 stitches, the heel over 26 with the top of the foot wider than the bottom.
The pile of red is a DK jumper for the Zegal which I fooled around with pattern to knit circular. It will have a nice shawl collar and I've lengthened it a bit as well. Can't find the pattern at the moment, so thankfully I rewrote it in my notebook.

And now the shocking. A woman who works in the building, or should I say, did work in the building, was frog marched out of the place on Wednesday. Seems her crime is to stick up for herself when her boss started being nasty when she announced she was pregnant and when she returned from maternity leave.

She kept a journal, she made a complaint and thankfully she was in a union so for the past several months the HR department has been dealing with her union lawyer. But it didn't stop the general manager and our in-house HR person kicking her out on Wednesday. She was asked last week by the GM to stop diarsing any problems and she refused.
Not only has she been smart enough to keep a diary, she is also a bloody good worker.

Edited to add: This woman had five job offers by the end of the week. We'll miss her, she was damn good at her job.

the sock vortex

Behind the washing machine, behind the lounge, behind the bed, behind every piece of furniture is a sock vortex.
How do I know? Every time I knit Jar a pair of socks one goes missing.
Never the bought socks with the holes in them, these seem to magically rise from the ashes of the garbage bin and end up in the sock drawer.
Tripy (my house trained gnome) is holding the surviving blue patonyle sock. 48 st, rib all the way down. Tripy's hat is one of the pair (relax I still have the other sock, it hasn't been sucked into a vortex yet) that I whipped up in the past few nights. It is a mix of left-over Heritage jigsaw with heels and toes in the blue patonyle.
The new onces are at least 2cm too long, but Jar still loves them. He had one on his foot walking around in the house waiting for me to finish the other one.
I've now got some Opal (forgotten how harsh that stuff is to knit) on the needles for him. I picked up two balls, both blues but different, for $20 total including postage from the bead and opal lady.
One croc sock for Zegal done, one started. My jaywalkers have stalled and I've cast on for Hedgerow socks for when I get bored of my everyday tweed.
I really shouldn't spend so much time on Ravelry, I should be knitting.

work socks

Finally I've done with these.
With the dense Bendigo Mills sock yarn (discontinued for many years) and on 2.5m needles and my extremely tight way of knitting these were done on 72 stitches with the pattern down the heel flap.
The first in the pair also caused a bit of an injury.
Yep those dreaded knitpicks didn't just slice the flesh, they tore the soft pad on my index finger apart. My own fault for not doing socks continental.
But the end result is beautiful.
Nice thick socks perfect to wear in boots and although they look fairly short on the leg they are fairly long, I just have a problem photographing my own feet properly.
How do people do it so artistically?
Oh so comfy.